Re-Thinking the Christian Worldview

May 19, 2013

120 Staff + 100 Kids Tomorrow = KIVU is HERE!!

It's a quiet corner on the Los Pinos River in Southwest Colorado. In less than 24 hours there will be almost 100 staff, 120 kids, and The Adventure will begin.For 15 years, I've been working on a dream to develop a place where Teenagers could begin to work with University Students to life live together.

With the help of thousands of staff over the years...Hundreds of thousands of donor dollars...And a little over 10K students who have actually attended...The dream is once again becoming reality.

Some might say, "Well there are hundreds of summer camps all over America, what makes KIVU different?"

At KIVU, we provide the Best in Class Outdoor adventures for teenagers to explore, discover, and develop a long life story. Imagine rafting through Class III and IV river rapids, or biking some of the world's greatest mountain bike trails, or climbing some of Colorado's best Rock Climbing sites. Students who come to KIVU are exposed to the BEST OF outdoor adventures to make Memories that will last a lifetime. Bottom line, we are proud to have fun, and we believe teenagers like to have fun. Today, the FUN begins.

At KIVU we have a philosophy of living life together. So many summer camps have the dreaded reputation of counselor and staff members who tell people what to do without regard to where they are in life. Whether it's a high ropes course where a student is afraid, or a long backpack trip they wanted to try out; our philosophy is "Do what you want to do, and we'll do it with you." We have a deep desire in our DNA to connect with students, and we feel like the friendships that develop at KIVU have a long lasting play in the lives of the students who come. They find mentors, they find adventure colleagues, and most of all they find people who don't judge them for what they're not. We live life together no matter where our students come from.

We have a Jesus centric core. We're certainly not "church camp," but all our staff are walking the Journey road of faith. We don't have any kind of quantitative conversion charts to judge our effectiveness by how many kids choose to live life our way. But rather; we have a long history of just accepting kids where they are, asking them hard questions about what they believe, and allowing them to walk at whatever speed they want. We've had Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Jews, and Muslims all attend at various times. And we see our mission to simply Love and Encourage students through the lens Jesus teaches. "Love God..." "Love Others..." It's as Simple as that.

So for the next 12 weeks, we'll be hosting students from all over America and have over 20 countries represented. We'll have students from Israel, Jordan, Spain, Australia, Canada, England, France, and most of the 50 States right here in our backyard.

It's such a beautiful picture of how The Journey mission continues to play in real life. I've been a part of conversations in Church circles, Para-Church circles, Government Peace Organizations, and Civil Service Groups who all talk about wanting to do something like this. Well, We're doing it. The Dream is Reality, and KIVU starts today.

If you'd like to know more about what's going on this summer, be sure to stop by our website at http://www.campkivu.com. Or if you jsut want to look as some quick action pictures, take a peek on our facebook page filled with photos and videos at http://www.facebook.com/campkivu.

If you're looking for a cool Colorado Summer in a unique place doing some of the of the most cutting edge life on life work with Teenagers, hit the registration button today, and come join us. We welcome new people as if they've always been here.